


Patronus

by FloreatCastellum



Series: Slice of Life One-Shots [26]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Gen, Godfather - Freeform, Harry is a good godfather
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 05:21:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18934288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloreatCastellum/pseuds/FloreatCastellum
Summary: How Teddy came to learn the Patronus Charm.





	Patronus

It was all very unexpected. One moment Teddy was watching the little kids in the back garden of Sparrow Cottage, chucking a quaffle about in the dusky light, the next everything felt very cold, and he had a strange sense of impending doom. 

He called the children down to the ground, and they gathered around him, clutching their brooms as a strange, thick mist suddenly crawled across the lawn towards them. 

'What is it?' Rose was shrieking.

'Teddy-' Al squeaked, clutching at his robes. 'What's going on?' 

'I don't know, I-' Four dark shapes were gliding towards them; his breath hitched in his throat. 'Run back to the house,' he told them, panic rising. 'Get the adults-'

He didn't have to tell them twice - as the dark shapes came closer, their cloaks rippling, he heard the girls scream, heard James yell, and the thundering of their feet behind him. He knew he should run too, but he was rooted to the ground, transfixed by the hooded creatures, colder than he had ever been in his life-

There was a rushing sound, and faint voices, his heart was thundering in his chest, they were getting closer and closer, someone was sobbing-

_Don't go, please don't go - don't leave us again-_

_I'm not, I'll be back, I promise, I love you, I love you, both of you-_

He thought he might be swaying, everything was dimming, but the creature was so close he could hear it's strange, rattling breath, could see the scaly, long, claw-like hand reaching out to him, inches away-

He felt something heavy slam into the back of him, and his legs buckled, but he was caught by something around his chest. Everything was growing darker and darker, but somehow there was also a bright white light. Am I dying? He thought vaguely. 

The rushing sound was still there, but it was lessening now, and above it he could hear shouts. The thing around his chest was still there, and he slumped against it, blinking through the dark patches that were growing at the corner of his eyes, looking at but not really seeing the damp grass. 

'Don't go,' he heard himself mumble. 'Don't go...'

He felt himself being lifted, swung up, and part of him stupidly thought, I'm fourteen, I don't need to be carried, but his body was limp, there seemed to be no strength in him. His head lolled back, and he tried to make sense of the shouts around him, but he was still very cold. His ear was against something firm, a chest, maybe, and he heard it rumble and quiver as a low voice spoke.

Suddenly he was being laid on the sofa, and someone was rolling him onto his side, tucking his hand in front of his face, bending his knee. He stared blankly out at the living room, it looked very different at this angle, and he felt himself panicking as he heard James's sobbing voice. 

'What's happening to Teddy? Mum, what's wrong with him?'

Teddy tried to speak, but only a shuddering gasp of 'don't go' came out, and he felt the sofa sink as the person stopped rearranging his position and sat beside him, rubbing his back. 'He's all right,' said a low voice. 'Ginny - get him out-'

'I've only found this-' said another low voice.

'That'll do - here, Ted-'

The warm ceramic edge of a mug was being pressed to his lips, a hand raising his head for him. He drank; the taste of chocolate overwhelmed him, and he felt as though it were rushing through his veins, chasing the cold out. 

He became more aware of things; Harry and Ron crouched by the sofa beside him, looking down with serious faces, the sounds of crying children in the kitchen and Ginny and Hermione's reassuring voices, the way he was trembling. Ron took the mug away, and Harry lowered Teddy's head, but kept his hand there.

'What...' began Teddy. 

'Dementors,' said Harry. 'I think I know who sent them, there have been some escalating threats - it's a work thing. They're gone now though, you're all right.' 

'Did I faint?'

'Not quite,' said Ron. 'But it was a close one, mate. Here, keep drinking.' He pushed the hot chocolate towards him again, but this time, on slightly trembling arms, Teddy heaved himself up a little to lean against the arm of the chair and take the mug himself. Harry moved his hand from the back of his head and gripped his shoulder instead. 

The warmth of the hot chocolate was helping, but it was also making him remember more clearly, piece it all together. He remembered the voices he had heard, one sobbing and the other hoarse, and his hands trembled so much that hot chocolate spilled from the mug over his hands and onto the sofa, and he felt tears spill from his eyes as he realised. 

'Was it real?' he babbled. 'What I heard, was it real? Was that them?' He knew he wasn't making sense, that neither Harry nor Ron could have possibly known what he had heard, but neither of them looked surprised. Ron just touched his wand to the mug, which refilled with more hot chocolate, and Harry rubbed his back soothingly again. 'What did she mean 'again'?' he continued, still babbling in panic. 'Don't leave us again - what-?'

'I promise I will talk to you about this,' said Harry, gently pushing the mug back towards Ted's face. 'But right now isn't the time.' 

'I need to-'

'I know you do,' said Harry. 'I swear it, Ted, I will explain - but only when you're feeling better.'

'Shall I get Andromeda?' Ron muttered. 

'Yes, I think so-'

'No,' Teddy blurted out. 'No, don't worry her, I'm all right-'

Harry chuckled lightly. 'You are, but I won't be if she finds out I didn't let her know as soon as possible.'

And so Ron left, stepping into the fireplace and vanishing with a whoosh of flames, leaving Harry and Teddy alone. Harry glanced over his shoulder to the door leading to the kitchen, where some tearful voices could still be heard. He looked back at Teddy. 'Are you all right if I leave you alone for a couple of minutes? Just to let them all know you're OK.' 

'Yeah, fine,' said Teddy, who was now starting to feel very embarrassed. Had Harry really carried him? He wasn't sure he'd been carried since he was a little boy. 'Are they all OK?' 

Harry smiled at him. 'Yes - well done. You really looked out for them. They're just worried about you.' 

Harry slipped out of the room, and Teddy drank deeply from the mug, sitting up even more, returning to normal. He tried not to think of his mother's voice, which had been distressed and scared and of course there was the matter of what she said, which he was going to force Harry to explain even if tried to wriggle out it it. But his father's voice... I love you, I love you, both of you... It floated around his head, filled him up, brought tears to his eyes. He wanted to listen to it over and over again. He wondered why no one had told him what his father sounded like, hoarse and gentle and with a slight lilt, but then he supposed he had never asked. He tried to picture him saying it, tried to match the words to the photos he had seen, but he didn't know how that soft smile would have moved into words, didn't know whether the eyes would have creased or the brows furrowed, didn't know whether he would have gestured with his hands or how he would have moved at all, beyond the photos he had of him smiling and waving at the camera. 

Harry returned with all the children, forlornly looking at him as though he were dying, and when he said, 'all right?' to them, they all rushed forwards to try and clamber onto his lap, all of them desperate to hug him. 

'We thought you'd DIED,' said Hugo. 'I was sure you were dead, I told Lily so.'

'I'm all right,' Ted told them. 

'Dad did a huge patronus - we saw it out the window,' said James. He looked up at his mother. 'That's what you said it was called, right? A patronus.' 

'That's right. I'm glad you're OK, Ted.' She looked down at them all. 'I think he needs some peace and quiet though - come on you lot, let's go up to bed. Rose and Hugo - you're staying over tonight.' 

'None of them fainted,' Teddy said to Harry quietly, as Hermione and Ginny herded them upstairs. 

Harry looked at Teddy with a strange expression, and seemed to think for a few moments. 'I used to faint at them too,' he said eventually. 'It's what happens when you have something horrible in your past to think about.' 

'I didn't think I would remember... any of that,' said Teddy. 'It's impossible, isn't it?' 

Harry considered for even longer this time. 'Those sort of things are always in the back of our minds, somewhere.'

The fireplace roared again, and his grandmother came bursting out, pale faced and furious looking, rushing to his side at once. She grabbed his face, and kissed him, and then glared up at Harry, who was leaning against the wall with his arms folded. 'What were creatures like that doing in your garden?' 

'Some journalist did a feature on what my boggart is,' said Harry. 'And since then I've had threats from some low-level ex-Death Eater-'

'And you let them all out in the garden unsupervised?' shrieked Grandma. 'You didn't think to mention to me your family was being threatened-?'

'It won't happen again,' Harry said calmly, though Teddy could see a redness colour his cheeks. 'I know exactly who it was and I'm going to go and arrest them-'

'It's a bit late for that! I'm not going through this again, Harry, I told you with that poison thing-'

'This isn't anything like last time,' Harry burst out. 'This wasn't a serious threat, this was some idiot chancer trying their luck-' 

'Very lucky! Aren't you supposed to have enchantments on this place, you're meant to be the paranoid one, aren't you?'

Teddy stopped listening to their argument; he cared very little about who exactly had sent them, he trusted that Harry would deal with it. But he realised that although he had learnt about boggarts at school, he had never seen one, and he was surprised that after everything he knew about that war, that those creatures were Harry's greatest fear. He wondered if there was a reason Harry knew immediately what Teddy had been talking about. 

Grandma insisted on taking Teddy home, even though he was meant to stay the weekend, and he had to admit he wasn't exactly upset about it. He shivered as he remembered the way they had glided towards him, filled him with fear unlike anything he had ever experienced, and worried that although Harry had sent them away, that they might come back. 

'Can you do a patronus?' he asked his grandmother as she tucked him into bed (again, not something that had happened since he was very small). 

'Of course I can,' she said briskly. 'Not as strong as Harry's, or so I hear, but good enough. Get some sleep. I love you lots. You know where I am if you need anything.' 

It was a strange thing to say, because he was fourteen and perfectly capable of going and getting himself a drink of water in the middle of the night. But Teddy stared up at his ceiling for many hours that night, desperately trying to think of anything else, swallowing as he imagined the many unpleasant reasons his mother would beg his father not to leave them again. 

***

His grandmother didn't let him return to Sparrow Cottage for the rest of the week, even though it was in the newspaper that Harry had arrested some obscure no-name Death Eater who had admitted it all. 

'See?' Ted tried to tell her, pointing at a quote. 'He was an idiot, he said he didn't think anyone could fight off four dementors. Harry's chased off loads more before, everyone knows that - he helped empty Azkaban of them, didn't he?' 

'That's not the point,' said Grandma. 'We still don't know how he knew the right address, or how he got them past the enchantments. You're not going back.' 

'We could all stay in the London place,' said Ted. 'I always like our city weekends-'

'No, Ted.' 

But eventually, not long before Ted was due to return to school, Ted heard raised voices from the kitchen and paused on the landing, listening. 

'-So what, I can never have a family?' Harry's voice was saying. 'Or am I meant to go into hiding every time some idiot with lofty criminal ambitions gives it a try?' 

'I'm just saying, he could stay here, and you and your family could visit here more often instead-'

'That makes no difference, you know it doesn't, it's about me - not whatever house we happen to be in.'

'Yes, I know,' he heard Andromeda snapping. 'I told Remus that, right before he rushed off to tell you all - I told him that even if you survived long enough to-'

'Don't,' said Harry, and Teddy blinked in shock - he had never heard Harry snarl like that. 'Don't, you know that's not fair.' 

He was even more shocked when he heard his grandmother crying. 'I just want him safe - how can you not understand?' 

'Of course I understand!' he heard Harry roar. He sank down and pressed his head against the banisters of the stairs, listening with a pounding heart. 'Years I've spent trying to shake that guilt, trying to overcome that fear, but what do you want me to do about it? I'm not just going to abandon him-'

'That's not what I'm asking, of course not!'

'Let me see him then!' Teddy breathed heavily as he heard her crying, heard a chair scrape, and then Harry's voice again, more gentle. 'Andromeda... I thought we put this argument to bed years ago.'

'I just keep thinking - if you hadn't got to him quick enough, or if the kids hadn't run back to the house-'

'They were a long way off performing the kiss. And you know what I'm like - I don't let any of my kids go further than I can run in less than half a minute.'

'Half a minute's all it can take,' said Grandma, so quietly that Teddy wasn't sure he had heard her correctly. 'Less than that. Two words.'

He heard Harry's heavy sigh. 'I refuse to keep them all locked up. Kids don't like being trapped. They deserve-'

'They deserve to be safe!' 

'They deserve someone other than me,' said Harry, his voice cracking. 'But I'm who they've got.' There was another long pause. 'I know you never agreed with Remus's decision, but it's the decision he made.'

There was silence - Teddy didn't dare move unless the floorboards creaked underneath him. Then, Harry's voice again. 'Where is he?' 

'In his room. You've got to talk to him,' she added sharply. 'He hasn't been right since.' Teddy frowned. He thought he'd been acting perfectly normally, or at least doing a good job of attempting it. 

'No, I don't expect he has,' said Harry. 'So I'm allowed, then?'

Ted scurried back to his room the moment he heard his grandmother reluctantly agree, closing his door as quietly as he could manage. He heard the footsteps coming up the stairs as he seized the nearest book and sat against the headboard of his bed, trying to make himself look casual, as though he wasn't trembling. 

Harry knocked gently, but didn't wait for Teddy to answer before he was pushing open the door. Teddy looked up at him, and Harry's green eyes bored into his in that way they did sometimes, when they made him feel like Harry could tell exactly what he was thinking. 'Hello,' was all he said. 

'Hi.' 

Harry sat on the end of the bed, taking a quiet but noticeable breath. 'I'm sorry about last month. I know it was an upsetting experience.' 

Teddy looked down at his book, without reading the words on the page. 'No one else fainted,' he said. 'Just me.' 

To his surprise, Harry chuckled slightly. 'Ted, you nearly fainted. You hung on well - first time I met a dementor I was out like a light.' 

'That's not the same,' said Teddy. 'I was thinking about what you said, and it's not the same - I've had a nice life, I haven't got horrible things to think about, you know, I'm sorry they died but it's not the same-'

'Look, I'll teach you,' said Harry. 'I've told you before that your dad taught me how to cast a patronus, and this is exactly why. His first duty as a teacher was waking me up after I fainted on the Hogwarts Express, it was very embarrassing.' 

Teddy raised an eyebrow. 'On the train? In front of everyone?' 

'Yeah, see, it could have been worse,' said Harry, smiling weakly. 'And then after that he taught me the spell, we had private lessons.' 

'I can't do magic outside of school,' said Teddy. 

'No,' said Harry fairly. 'But I've already thought of that, don't worry. I'll make sure you learn it, Ted.' 

Teddy nodded, and already he felt a bit better. He imagined the event again, but this time he knew what to do, this time he saved the kids, and Grandma wasn't furious at all...

'Do you... Do you hear your parents?' Ted asked him hesitantly. 'When there's a dementor?'

'Yes,' said Harry. 'And I didn't think I remembered mine, either.' 

'What do they say?' Ted asked. 

Harry looked at him carefully. 'They're not speaking to me,' he said in a measured voice. 'I remember their last moments.' Ted looked at him, wide eyed, too afraid to ask but needing to know... 'I hear the screaming,' Harry continued. 'And the... begging.' 

Ted felt like he was going to vomit. 'I'm glad I wasn't there,' he said. 'I'm glad I don't have memories like that.' 

'What did you hear?' Harry asked him quietly. 

Teddy told him. And Harry nodded and listened. And then Teddy told him the other thing, the thing he'd been thinking of all week. 'It makes me want to find another dementor, so I can hear him say that again.' 

'That seems reasonable,' said Harry, to Teddy's great surprise. 'But I wouldn't advise it.' 

'No, I didn't think you would,' said Teddy, which made Harry smile. 

Harry rubbed his jaw. 'I wish I could make that better for you, Ted. I understand, truly, I do. But you're smart enough to know why it's a dangerous road to go down. Please don't go looking for dementors.'

'All right,' said Ted, even though he knew he never would have anyway. 'There's... There's the other thing too.' 

Harry sighed again, and rubbed his eyes wearily under his glasses. 'Ah... Yes...' 

'You promised. You swore it.' 

'Yes, I did.' 

Teddy watched as his godfather rubbed the back of his neck, and closed his eyes. He felt a bubble of nerves grow inside him. He suddenly regretted asking. But how would he ever be able to think of anything else? 

'The first thing to know, Ted... And I need you to remember this all the way through... Is that he loved you, and your mother, very much.' 

Teddy's heart plummeted to his stomach. A nasty voice in his head told him that if that was true, it wouldn't need to be said. Harry couldn't seem to look at him. 

'And I have told you before,' Harry continued heavily. 'That love makes us do very irrational things sometimes... Well... As a werewolf, your father had a life I think neither of us can ever truly understand. Things are much better for werewolves now that they were then, and even then things were better to when he was growing up.' 

'I know this,' said Teddy. 'You've told me, about how he couldn't keep a job and he never had any money, Nana told me-'

'It's more than that,' said Harry patiently. 'Teddy, you'll never see because we, and lots of other people, worked very hard after the war to change things, but he was a complete outcast in every sense of the word. He'd spent his whole life being rejected and insulted and made to feel like an inherent danger.' Harry hesitated, and sighed again. 'It's very hard... When you believe your mere existence puts people at risk. He kept people at arms length as much as possible, and for a long time that included me too.' 

'What do you mean?' 

'I mean I didn't know he existed until I was thirteen, and even then we went a long time before he told me that he'd been friends with my father. He recognised me instantly on that train, and I assumed for a long time it was because of my scar, but looking back...' Harry shook his head slightly. 'He just recognised me. But he didn't say anything for a long time.' 

'You were friends later though.' 

'Yes, but I didn't see as much of him as I would have liked. He really did lead a very lonely life, Ted, and obviously we've tried not to emphasise that to you because it's nicer to just talk about when we saw him at Christmas or what a good teacher he was - and all of that is true. And then he fell in love with your mum, and he tried to distance himself from her too.' 

'I know that,' said Teddy. 'I know about how she said she loved him in the hospital wing and then he realised he couldn't fight it anymore-' It had always seemed so romantic, the way Ginny and Molly had told him, he'd always imagined the passionate declaration of love, his father chivalrous and trying to do the right thing, everybody watching as they could no longer deny their love anymore... 

But Harry wasn't smiling, and he seemed to be finding it hard to look at Teddy. Eventually, he said, slowly, 'I... I'm only telling you this because I once had similar questions about my parents, and although I got some answers I never had the full story and now it's too late. I'll never know exactly how they got together and how my father overcame his flaws, I just know that he overcame them. I want you to know that your father did too, but I don't want you constantly wondering like I did...' 

'If I hadn't heard what I heard, you'd have never said anything,' said Teddy. It wasn't accusing, and he thought Harry looked grateful for it. 

'No, I wouldn't,' said Harry, and Teddy appreciated his honesty. Harry waited a few moments again, and then finally spoke. 'When your mother was pregnant with you, your father was very scared. It wasn't known... Well, he hadn't even been sure if it was possible, let alone what it would be like for you. He had no idea if his condition was hereditary, he was terrified that he had condemned you to the same life he had-'

'But-'

'He had an awful time of it, Ted,' Harry said firmly. 'And you know, once I had kids I understood it a lot better - if I knew that by having a child they would go through what I did, I wouldn't have them at all.'

'So he didn't want me,' said Teddy bitterly. 

'That's not what I said,' replied Harry swiftly. 'I think he wanted nothing more than a happy family, and that was what was so terrifying. But... during that fear, and as a result of that irrational love for your mother - and you must remember that he believed that he had destroyed her life by marrying her, that she would be outcast as he had been - he... Well, he came to me, and offered to help me.' 

Whatever Teddy had been expecting, it wasn't that. 'That sounds nice of him?' 

Harry rubbed his eyes again. He seemed to be finding it very difficult to form the words. 'Well... it was the height of the war by this point. There was no way that... Joining me and helping me in hiding... He would be leaving you and your mother behind.' 

Teddy stared at him, breathing heavily. 

'I realised this, and we argued... Quite viciously, I might add... and then he left and returned to your mother.'

'You sent him back,' said Teddy, his voice strangled. 

'I wouldn't take the credit for that, I think I just reminded him what he would be leaving behind.' 

'You mean abandoning,' said Teddy, who had suddenly realised that tears were spilling onto his cheeks. 'He thought he'd ruined mum's life and created a little monster baby, so he thought it would be better to just leave them to deal with that alone-'

'I did say it was irrational,' said Harry. 'Oh, Ted, he didn't-'

'So he did leave her,' said Teddy, gripping the edges of his book with white knuckles. 'He left her and she knew he would do it again-'

'No, look,' said Harry heavily. 'He was very conflicted, and as I got older I understood so much more why he did what he did-'

'No,' said Teddy fiercely. 'No, you wouldn't do that, you just said yourself that you couldn't just abandon me-'

'I knew you'd overheard that,' Harry muttered. He shifted closer to Ted, moved the book away, and grabbed his face. 'Listen to me - he was afraid, and I would be devastated if you ever truly knew how afraid he was because it's the sort of fear that only comes with an utterly miserable experience. And he wasn't afraid for himself, he was afraid for you, and he was afraid your mum, but once he had you, he was happier than I ever saw him.' 

But Teddy cried, and Harry hugged him, and all Teddy wanted was a dementor again, but now there was a new fear - what if his father had never meant those words at all? 'I'm so angry with him,' he said, feeling as though his heart was shattered. His father had been his hero...

'Just because we're orphans doesn't mean we should miss out on being angry at our parents now and then,' said Harry. 'Be angry with him if you want, I was at the time. But I need you to remember that he really did love you, Ted. You and your mum. He made a mistake, but he came back. That's all that matters really.'

***

He was well settled into the Hogwarts routine and looking forward to Halloween when it first happened. It was all very unexpected. One moment he was sat at the Hufflepuff table enjoying a plate of lasagne, the next a nervous looking first year was handing him a slip of parchment. 

_Mr Lupin,_

_Please go to the History of Magic classroom after dinner. Your godfather is waiting for you there._

_Prof. Longbottom_

Teddy gawped at the first year. 'Did Longbottom say anything when he gave this to you?' 

'Yeah, he said my last essay needed a proper conclusion, and not to just sit on the fence-'

'About the note, you dolt.' 

'Oh, no.' 

Teddy raced through the rest of his lasagne, blurted out a 'gotta go' to his friends, and ran from the table. 

'No running inside, Lupin,' squeaked a passing Professor Flitwick. 

'Sorry.' He waited until he was in the entrance hall before bursting into a sprint again, racing up the stairs two at a time, impressively only stumbling once. 

He found the classroom and stood outside it breathlessly for a few seconds. Was Harry really in there? Had something bad happened? 

He opened it, and saw his godfather with a faraway look on his face, leaning against the desk with his wand in his hand. The desks had been pushed aside, leaving a space on the floor. 'Ted,' he said, looking up and smiling. 

'What are you doing here?' Ted asked him. 

'Ah, I'm not,' said Harry, with a glint in his eye. 'I hope you haven't told any of your friends? I have special permission from McGonagall, but I'm keen to lie low.' 

Teddy walked towards him, noticing for the first time a trunk on the ground. 'What's going on?' 

'I said I would teach you the patronus charm, didn't I? I've been searching for ages for a boggart; luckily one tried to move into the records room at the Ministry and I got there in time before anyone else could get rid of it.' He eyed him. 'Have you ever faced a boggart?' 

'No, I don't know what form it will take. I know what to do though.' 

'Well, let's stick to dementors today. I'll step forward so it focuses on me, and then you can have a go at the spell.'

Teddy looked uneasily at him. 'I don't want you to... Hear that.' 

Harry raised his eyebrows in surprise and then broke into a broad smile. 'You are unfailingly considerate, Ted. I promise I'll be all right, I deal with dementors often, and this won't be a real one anyway. Now, wand out.' 

Harry explained the spell, corrected his pronunciation, emphasised the importance of a happy memory. 'And it's got to be really good,' Harry warned him. 'Blowing out the candles on your birthday cake won't do it.' 

'Right,' said Teddy, thinking hard. He'd had a nice life. He knew that. But right now he couldn't think of a single time he had been overwhelmingly happy. 'Erm...' 

He screwed up his face in concentration, and Harry winced. 'Have I been that bad a godfather?' 

'No! I just can't... OK,' he said, seizing upon the first memory that popped into his head. 'Got it.' 

'You sure?' 

Teddy nodded, and stood firm, raising his wand. He was good at defence, he knew that, but he was also well aware that this spell was something many adult wizards couldn't do... 

Harry gave him a nod, and pulled the trunk, which rattled irritably, in front of him. He stood before it. 'Ready?' he said, and then at Teddy's assurance, he opened the trunk with a kick. 

A huge, cloaked figure burst from it, the breath rattling, the scaly hands reaching for Harry-

Teddy could hear the sobbing again, could hear his mother's pleading voice, but he thought very hard of the Sorting Hat, and the way it had shouted 'HUFFLEPUFF!', and the cheer that had rose from the people who were soon to become his friends... 

'Expecto patronum!' he shouted. 'Expecto patronum!' 

But nothing was happening, he may as well have been a muggle. The voices were getting louder, and he could hear his father saying that he loved him, and darkness was creeping in the corners of his vision... 

Harry stumbled slightly, and then raised his wand. Some sort of glistening barrier forced the boggart back into the drunk, and suddenly all was quiet again. He turned, and Teddy saw with a stab of guilt that he looked quite pale, even though he smiled at him. He chucked a chocolate frog his way, and opened one for himself too. 

'So,' he said, biting the head off his frog. 'What was your happy memory?' 

'Getting sorted into Hufflepuff.' 

Harry wrinkled his nose and hummed through his frog. 'Nah, that won't do it.' 

'Well, what do you usually think of?'

'Nowadays I just pick a child and think of when they were born. It's usually James I think of first if I'm brutally honest - obviously, don't tell any of them that.' 

Teddy rolled his eyes. 'That's not something I can really relate to, is it?' 

'I don't know,' said Harry, frowning. He chewed his chocolate for a few moments. 'It doesn't have to be any stand out memory or special moment, you just need to summon up that feeling of happiness. You could think generically about something.'

'Like Sunday lunches at the Burrow?'

'Sure, give it a shot,' said Harry. 'If you're ready, of course?' Teddy nodded. 'All right then... Three, two, one...' 

The dementor rose before them, filling the room with it's icy sorrow, and there was his father's voice again-

'Expecto patronum!' he shouted. This time his wand seemed to quiver - a silvery mist floated from the tip as he thought hard of the laughter of those summer days at the Burrow, all of them on the long tables, the smiling faces, the fussing over him-

But the darkness crept back, and he fell painfully to the floor, his head spinning as his mother's voice rang clearer than ever...

_I can't stay here, not while he's there - I'll bring him back, I've got to bring him back-_

'Teddy!' 

_Look after him, make sure he's all right, please, Mum-_

'Ted!'

He blinked, and found himself looking at the legs of the desks and chairs, his face pressed against the cold dusty floor, his limp arm stretched out and his leg bent as Harry shook him.

'Oh...'

'It's all right, here you go - eat this.' 

Teddy took the chocolate frog with trembling hands, looking determinedly up into Harry's face. 'There was mist that time,' he said. 'Did you see it? Silvery.' 

Harry smiled at him. 'Very good. You're going in the right direction.'

'I'm ready to do it again,' said Teddy firmly. 

'Just rest a little while longer-'

'No, now,' Ted insisted, clambering shakily to his feet. 

Harry, still kneeling on the floor, smiled up at him. 'Got a new memory already?' 

'Yes.' 

And so they tried once more, this time Teddy thinking furiously of the way all the kids howled with laughter when he turned his nose into a pig snout, the way they all looked up to him, their eyes shining in admiration and joy... 

The mist was stronger this time - it didn't take a form, but it looked more solid, and behind it, Teddy could only hear the voices very quietly. He held onto it for as long as he could, before Harry forced the boggart back in. 

'Enough for today,' said Harry. 'You're looking pale,' he said sternly, as Teddy protested. 'I won't have you ending up in the hospital wing. One more chocolate frog, and I'll see you next week.' 

'Really?' said Teddy excitedly. 

'I'll come every Wednesday evening til we get it right,' Harry promised him. 

'What should I tell my friends?' 

'That you're in detention?' 

'They won't believe that,' said Teddy, and Harry grinned at him.

'Cook something up with Professor Longbottom. Say you're helping him with something really boring.' 

Teddy hugged him, and felt Harry ruffle his hair. 'Thank you,' he said. 

'It's only right,' said Harry. 'Don't forget to turn your hair back to blue before you go.' 

***

It was almost the end of the academic year when Harry came home one Wednesday evening. The kids were already in bed. Ginny was on the sofa with the cat. 

'How was it?' she asked. 

He grinned. 'He got it.' 

Her jaw dropped in delighted pride. 'He did? What's his form?' 

Harry laughed. 'A bear, which I thought was pretty funny, given the name.' 

Ginny smiled gently. 'That was Tonks's original,' she said. 'Before Remus, I mean.' 

'Was it really?' he said, sitting heavily beside her. 'I'll have to tell him that. He was disappointed it wasn't a wolf, so then I had to go through the whole thing about how Remus would have hated that.'

'Ah. Did he tell you what memory he used?' 

'No,' said Harry. 'Bit personal to ask, isn't it?' 

But Teddy had told him. Tearfully, embarrassed. 

'I separated it,' he'd said. 

'Separated what?' Harry had replied. 

'The memory,' Ted said. 'I thought of my dad's voice saying... Saying that, but I took it away from the memory. I stuck it onto a different memory, of you carrying me.' He looked down at his feet, his face almost scarlet with embarrassment. 'I hope you're not upset,' he said. 

And Harry had hugged him, his heart soaring and breaking, kissing him on top of the head and promising that he was happier than Teddy could imagine.


End file.
